


Blind Trust

by Clover26



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Camping, DxS, Emotions?, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Hypothermia, I will teach you about the forest, Jack and I will teach you heath risks and safety, Mac and I will teach you orienteering, Pre-Series, They kill a rabbit at some point, Trust Issues, Wilderness Survival, cuz they are unsafe in this Fic, educational fanfiction, winter camping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28378797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clover26/pseuds/Clover26
Summary: Set after Mac and Jack are discharged from the army, and are working at DXS but before they meet Nikki. They're are called onto a mission to retrieve top secret files from an abandoned shack in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. They run into a number of problems during their backpacking trip including falling through ice, getting caught in a blizzard, and nearly starving. The good thing is Mac grew up in the forest and he loves camping and wilderness survival, but the bad thing is the Alaskan wilderness isn't quite like Northern California. The even worse thing is Mac and jack haven't been working together at DXS for very long and  despite their time working together in the army, they don't quite know how the other works yet.  They're going through some stuff right now okay?  And Mac has major trust issues so that's not helping.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	1. In the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is the first work I've ever posted on Ao3 so that's exciting. I've had this idea for a long time I started writing down the idea for its months and months ago when I was reading a wilderness survival book and found a section on snow-blindness and it inspired me. Then a while after that I had sort of forgotten about this, I got an old compass from my grandma for my bday and the compass is from 1970 and it’s a really good compass it has a mirror and its really sturdy and I love it. The only problem is since 1970 magnetic north has shifted so on the compass it says magnetic north is 34 degrees north west but now its only 20 degrees northwest so I had to mark the correct angle so I could actually use it, cuz even though that doesn’t sound like a lot it would totally make a difference. Anyways when I got the compass I was like when now I really have to write about mac and jack finding their way by compass, so I returned and continued planning out this fic and I wrote a whole first chapter. Then I lost interest for a while again until a week or two ago I found the document and scraped that first chapter cuz it had way too much uses info and didn’t work and I started writing again. :))  
> *also I'll have to update the tags as I go because I'm not quite what to put yet
> 
> **I took the populations from 2015 because that’s a little closer to when this would be set so they are not accurate to todays numbers**

5:45 am PST  
Wednesday  
The ass crack of dawn

Jack honks, he’s parked out front Mac’s house, seconds alter Mac pops out the door looking annoyed. He heaves up his huge backpacking bag onto his back. Its blue waterproof and bigger than Mac’s torso, Jack can see the top over the pack peek over macs head. The bag probably weighs as much as Mac does, Jack laughs to himself.

Mac locks the door behind him and makes his way to the car. He doesn't acknowledge Jack in the front seat on his way past. He slings his bag into the trunk next to Jacks and gets in the passenger seat next to him.

“Morin’ kid,” Jacks says, handing him a coffee and a bagel. Mac grunts a thanks but he’s still upset with Jack.

Jack puts the car in gear, and they begin driving to the DXS airstrip. He tries to break the ice with the kid. “Mac I’m sorry about last night, I shouldn’t have yelled but -”

“I don’t need your apology Jack.” Mac snaps, speaking for the first time. “I just want to get this mission on with.”

“No Mac we have to resolve this there will be no working together on mission if we don’t.” Jack tries to be rational.

“Jack, it's fine, I have my opinion and you have yours. Move on.”

“You know I can’t do that if your opinion is going to get you killed.”

“But I didn’t get killed Jack! I’m fine! It worked fine!”

“You ran directly into fire! You could have been shot!”

Mac can hear the desperation in Jack’s voice but he still doesn’t give him an inch. “I saw an opportunity to shut off the machine and I took it.”

“An opportunity to get yourself shot to bits.”

“But I didn’t! So just drop it!”

“Do you want to die? Is that it, you have a death wish? Your life not going the way you wanted? You wanna get shot, Mac?”

Jack waits for an answer, Mac doesn’t give him one. “Mac we can’t go like this-”

“Jack I understand that you don’t trust me-“

“What? -“  
“Listen I know you don’t trust me and that’s fine I accept that, but Thornton called us specifically on this mission because of our skills. and we can’t not show up for her.”  
Jack has no idea how to respond to that, he' shocked Mac can be so smart but have gotten this so wrong. He trusts him, what the hell is Mac talking about? Jack hesitates trying to think of something to say. Something that would get Mac to understand, Jack just wants him to be safe.  
Mac shifts sensing the conversation is over, he turns and stares out the window.

6:45 am  
DXS Air Strip, L.A. CA  
Population Approx. 3.94 Million 

After driving the rest of the way in silence only broken when Jack turns off the radio, they arrive at the airstrip; Thornton meets them in the hanger. 

“What’s up Patty? What’s so important you’ve got us at the airport without a briefing?”

“MacGyver, Dalton thank you for being on time.” Thornton says. “Your mission is to hike into a national park in Alaska, find a cabin where some files, containing top secret information from the Cold War are stashed. We only just got the intel yesterday of the existence of the files, when I told you to get packed. Do you have everything on the list?”

“Yea, but six days worth of food? How long will we be out there?” Mac asks.

“Hopefully no longer than six days.”

Fair answer.

“Patty, you do know it's basically winter isn’t it gonna be freezing up there.”

“You packed warm clothes?”

“Well yeah but…”

“No buts Jack, please try to be professional, this is your job.”

Jack grumbles something about professionalism and Mac snickers at him.

Thornton clears her throat, “If you packed everything on the list you should be fine. The other thing is this is a time sensitive issue, we aren’t the only ones looking for these files and now that we know about them who knows who else does? There are weather warnings in the area for a blizzard it could be nothing but it could be dangerous which is why we  
need your skills.”

Mac nods but Jack doesn’t look convinced “Are you sure you’re not just trying to get rid of us? This sounds like a death sentence, sending us into a blizzard for some files that might exist.”

Thornton glances at him in disapproval before handing Mac a file. “In there are the maps and everything you will need to know about the region and your contact in Anchorage.

“Wait why do we have to hike in? Can’t we just zip over in a helo and get it done with? Jack cuts in.

“Blizzard warning?” Mac asks sarcastically.

“The area is low visibly from the sky due to the sunlight reflecting off the snow and blinding pilots. The terrain would be nearly impossible to land blind. And normally we wouldn’t send anyone into an inaccessible remote area while it's under a possible blizzard precaution, but the information in the files is very sensitive and possibly dangerous.”

Jack seems to accept this answer, and Mac thinks for a moment before asking, “What’s in the files?”

“That’s classified.”

“Classified as in you don’t know, or classified as in we’ll lose our jobs if we sneak a peek?”

“Our intel says they likely contain information about a bunker, previously thought to be just propaganda.”

Mac and Jack nod “No further questions” Jack says, mocking professionalism.

Thornton wishes them good luck and a safe flight then turns and leaves. The agents grab their bags and board the plane, while the pilot prepares for take off.

The flight is long, almost 5 hours. The boy’s spend their time looking through the files Thornton gave them, then they try to get some sleep knowing they’ll need rest before they begin the trek the next day.

When they’re not sleeping they barely talk, Mac thinks Jack is still mad at him especially after he admitted he knew Jack didn’t trust him. Mac’s anxiety is blowing everything about of proportion but he cant help it, sitting in silence with Jack and nothing to do.[EM1] He keeps going over the argument in the car, and the fight yesterday, and the mission. He’s trying to figure out if he can fix this with Jack, but just the thought of confronting Jack up twists his stomach and makes his skin crawl with nerves. There’s no way Jack is going to want to stick around after the way he treated him, their partnership will be over and Jack will finally be able to get on with his life. Without Mac.

1:00 pm AKST  
Anchorage the largest city in Alaska  
Population approx. 290, 000

Their contact, an ex-operative who’d been relocated to Alaska when he retired, Jason Palmer. Mr. Palmer was an old man of average description, average height, weight, clothes. He snorted when he saw Mac clearly unimpressed by the younger agent. They shook hands, Mac mildly offended, he was used to people treating him that way, but it still hurt to be constantly underestimated.

They stayed with Mr. Palmer for the night he let them sleep on a blow-up mattress squished into his office.

That afternoon Mac messed about with the navigation gear getting himself oriented with the maps and the area. They didn’t exactly have coordinates just a 40-year-old map with a vague location marked and a few notes from the DXS techs. Mac checked over the route they’d chosen and quickly ran some calculations to figure out how long each section would take them. A mile with a rise of 1000 ft in elevation takes about an hour so each day of hiking should take around 5 hours if they want to make there and back in six days. That leaves some room for adjustment as the weather is unpredictable and their maps are certainly outdated and liable for mistake or changed in land formation that were not accounted for. At a certain point on the last day, they’ll be able to contacts Mr. palmer to come pick them up and hopefully they’ll reach the arranged meeting place around the same time.

Jack finished blowing up the air mattress and rolled on to it relaxing. “Hey, remind me again how we are going to navigate with an old map and a compass to a location that may or may not exist?”

Mac sighs looking up from the map. “Well, the compass bit is easy but whether or not there’s anything out there… no idea.”

“Great,” Jack responds sarcastically, stretching out on the air mattress. “And you're a compass expert? I’m pretty sure they always had GPS when you were a kid.”

“My Grandfather taught me orienteering when we went camping as a kid. I’ve known how to navigate backwoods trails since I was ten.” Mac says defiantly, he’s proud of this.

Jack stays silent for a moment waiting to see if Mac will continue. The kid never talks about his childhood or family. In the army Jack barely ever got mac to talk about Bozer and all he really said was that’s he was Mac’s childhood friend. Jack also knows Mac’s mom died when he was young, and his dad left so his grandfather raised him, but Jack doesn't even know his grandpa's name. 

“Alrighty then you're the expert, I've seen a lot of maps man but camping has never been my scene. My dad took us when we were all real little. I remember making smores around a campfire but living on the ranch was a lot like camping outside all the time. We’d sleep outside on warm summer nights in the soft grassy fields staring up at the stars. We’d stay up all night making up stories and playing outside.” Jack says wistfully, remembering his boyhood with a melancholy smile.

“I loved camping as a kid.” Something in Mac’s voice made Jack sit up to see Mac’s face, his eyes were glazed over and he didn't seem to notice Jack move. “After my Dad left we stayed at his house in Mission City, it wasn’t big like L.A. and the stars weren’t anything like the backwoods in North Calli. I remember when my grandpa took me camping, I’d sit by the river a little way away from our campsite looking up at the stars for hours. Harry taught me how to navigate by the stars. How sailors could find north my the north star Polaris. He showed me so many constellations I wanted to learn them all, Hercules, Ursa major and minor, Scorpio, I wonder what the fall constellations are? If they’re different since we’re so much farther north? Orion’s belt maybe?” 

Mac seemed a million miles away stuck in the memory of his grandfather and his childhood. Jack smiles imagining young Mac being amazed by the stars and the world around him.

They both took a moment lost in memories before continuing to check over their maps and gear. 

“So your saying that we should hunt for our food?” Mac asks incredulously. “Jack we’re only gone for like six days and we hike the whole time. We don't have time for sticking around and hunting.”

“Yea but then we wouldn't have to haul out all this food, and we could just have a camping trip where we find some old files in a secret cabin.” 

“That wouldn’t really be a nice little camping trip, it would just be us trying to survive in the wild.

“No, it would be a hunting trip!” He mimes shooting a gun excitedly.

Mac rolls his eye, but a small smile creeps across his face.

After dinner that evening Mac offers to help wash the dishes, Jack joins him in the kitchen. They work together in silence, the rift in their friendship and trust is still noticeable. When they're finished they join Mt. Palmer in the living room.

“You boys know what you're doing tomorrow?”

Mac explains they have to wake up early and drive out to the national park to start the long hike as soon as possible. 

“So we have to leave by six? That ain’t too early?” Mr. Palmer asks.

“The drive is like what four and a half hours?” Palmer nods, Mac continues saying “Yeah leave by six then, the mission is important, someone needs those files quickly.”

“If they even exist.” Jack cuts in.

“Yeah” Mac shrugs. That thought hangs in the air for a second before-

“Oh! I got a book for you,” Mr. Palmer says struggling to get up quickly he grabs an old paperback book.

“We don't really have much space for anything else ...”

“No, no,” he quiets Mac’s modest refusal of the gift. “I wasn’t going to give you this but you seem capable, and worthy.” He eyes Mac then hands him the book and takes his seat again. “Its a guide to the area, the weather, plants, animals and first aid. I'm sure you boys already know a bit of first aid with your line of work but the rest of it might be helpful.”  
Mac flips through the book the text is small, printed in times new roman font the pages are stiff and wrinkled. The whole book looks like it was dropped in water and dried in the sun.

“Its an old book,” Mr. Palmer goes on. “I used to take it camping with my son. He was a good kid, a little troubled maybe misguides but deep down he was good. When he moved out we lost touch, I can see that the two of you are going through something, some trouble maybe. I don’t want you to lose touch the way my son and I did.”  
Mac blushed lightly at the implication of him being Jacks son.

Mr. Palmer turned to Mac and continued speaking. “When we met earlier I had my doubts about you, in my time agents were all cut from the same material, and you son don’t quite fit the mold.” He shakes his head in thought. “Pardon my eavesdropping but earlier I heard you talking about your plan for the trip and you seem like a knowledgeable young man. The backcountry trails are dangerous and the cold is unforgiving, you reminded me of my son and I don’t want you boys to get caught in a snowstorm and freeze to death.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mac stammers quietly, taken aback by the old mans kind words.

“We really appreciate that man, and thanks for letting us crash here tonight and the ride out tomorrow.” Jack adds.

“We’ll that’s all a favor to your boss Ms. Thornton. But the company is nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy am i struggling with formatting  
> anyways i hope you enjoyed that first chapter  
> have a good day/night :))


	2. Day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m gonna have to blame any out-of-character awkward banter on Mac and Jack’s rocky relationship at the moment and not on my writing skills.
> 
> Also, I feel like I don’t need so much description of the things they are doing but that’s the point it's about survival and so you get to learn how they set up their tent and what knots they tie.
> 
> One last thing: Guys, when I watched the original MacGyver, I loved that he liked camping and nature and that stuff and I’m kinda disappointed it hasn’t come up as much in the reboot. Like there aren’t that many characters out there who genuinely love camping and know about that and that’s important to me.
> 
> Anyways enjoy :))

6:00 am

Thursday- Day 1

Once again, we’re awake way too early

Jack startles awake at the sound of their alarm going off, he checks the clock, already knowing it's 6 am. The office is still dark, a crack of light coming in through the door, he can hear Mr. Palmer moving around outside. Jack rubs his eyes and turns his attention to Mac. He’s still asleep covered by his unzipped -30 degrees Celsius proof sleeping bag, his legs stick out awkwardly into the cool air. His messy hair is blown about his face reminding Jack that his partner is still a kid, they only met a few years ago, Mac was 19. Jack still can’t believe how young he was back then, diffusing bombs, saving lives like it was nothing. When Jack was 19, he remembers being broke and living on the ranch trying to figure out what to do with his life. He was moody and got into fights and really wasn’t thinking much about the army or anything.

“Mac,” Jack whispers loudly, poking the kid in the side.

“Wha- '' Mac startles awake sitting bolt upright scooching away from Jack like he just got stabbed. He looks around, rubs his eyes then groans realizing what happened. “Time to get up?” His voice is scratchy from sleep.

“Yep.” Jack says grinning, he’s starting to pack up his things. Mac joins him and they clean everything up in about 15 minutes, the bed deflated and folded, sleeping bags in stuff sacs and everything attached to their backpacks.

They haul their bags to the front of Mr. Palmer's apartment leaving them by their shoes at the front door. They grab some breakfast with their host, chatting with him but not too much.

At a quarter to 7 they’re all ready to go and they head out, Mr. Palmer Drives and Jack rides shotgun forcing Mac to sit in the back with their backpacks. Jack and Mr. Palmer talk about how Palmer knows Thornton it’s a fairly typical spy story. They met through a mission and ended up owing her a favor for saving his ass.

Mac messes about in the backseat with their maps and his compass. After not too long he gets bored and starts reading an old magazine that was in a puddle on the floor of Mr. Palmer's car. Once he finishes that cover to cover, he rips off a bit and folds it into a paper crane. After a few minutes he has a sizable collection of mini paper cranes in his lap, he hands one to Jack who gushes over how cute it is for about a minute then tucks it into his pocket and forgets about it completely.

Mac stares out the window trying to stay still and think but that doesn’t last for long before goes back to searching for something to do. He finds a partly dried-up sharpie marker and used it to write out complicated math equations in the magazine. He tries to solve them taking his time, but he can’t get exact numbers without a calculator because there’s only so many decimal points you can find using long division before you have to give up.

He closes the marker and puts it back, thinking for a second, he recites the periodic table in his head forwards then for a challenge, backwards. And he continues making up silly little games and problems like this for most of the trip after that.

When he runs out of things to do, he joins the conversation With Jack and Mr. Palmer and they talk about camping and some tips for the climate. And things Mac might not know having grown up in the forest in northern California which were much different from the landscape in Denali National Park.

10:30 am

Finally, were getting somewhere

They pulled off the highway into the park some time back and now they’re turning onto a narrow gravel road. They haven’t seen another car in miles. Mac says their starting point isn’t too far up the road. He packs up his maps and things and they put on their Jackets preparing to get out when they stop. After another 20 mins of driving, they look for a clearing in the woods that would be a good spot to start.

Mr. Palmer parks in the middle of the road and they get out and stretch. It’s a chilly day. The snow covering the ground is dirty and old with patches of gravel and dirt showing through where it melted.

They eat a quick lunch of sandwiches and some apples Mr. Palmer made this morning.

“Alright I’ll leave you boys to your mission then.” Mr. Palmer says brushing off his hands and heading back over to the driver’s seat of the car.

“Thanks for everything Mr. Palmer.” Mac says gathering his things.

“We’ll see you in about a week?”

“I’ll be waiting for your call.” Mr. Palmer says, holding up his radio.

“Buh-bye.”

Mac and Jack start out on their trek waving to Mr. Palmer as he drives away. Mac leads the way into the forest, his boots sinking annoyingly into the uneven crunchy snow.

“Alright bud, you ready to get this show on the road?” Jack asks excitedly. He expects sarcasm from the kid but instead Mac turns his head giving him a genuine smile.

“Yep.” He says, and Jack can tell how happy is to be back in the forest. In nature in the middle of nowhere. Crisp clean air, tall coniferous trees rising around them, soft, uneven ground. The rustling brush, the sounds of birds chirping and the snow crunching.

Jack watches as Mac’s aura of anxiety leaves him as he takes in his surroundings. The effect of being away from civilization is profound on Mac his posture isn’t as stiff, but he stands tall and walks with purpose. He breaths the fresh air free unconsciously and scans his horizons calculatingly but not nervously waiting for someone to pop out and attack them.

They don’t talk much as they hike both profoundly aware of how alone with each other they are. Neither quite sure how-to broach the subject of their arguments. Neither sure if the other trusts them despite them trusting the other.

Not too long into the hike Jack starts humming Guns’ N Roses, then breaks out into song. “Woah-oh-oh! Sweet child o' mine. Woah, oh-oh-oh! Sweet love of mine!”

Jack sings his way through as many songs as he can remember and Mac hums along to the ones he knows.

Mac knows that making noise is smart to keep animals away and lower their risk of getting attacked but that’s not going to make him confident enough to shout the lyrics to Crazy Train at the top of his lungs.

By the time Jack runs out of songs to butcher they’re both out of breath, and deep into the woods.

At some point Jack switches to asking Mac about his favorite movies. Mac mostly gives short answers not really satisfying Jack. Mac gives a few of Bozer's movies opinions, but when Jack asks for his opinion Mac just shrugs. He likes movie’s fine, but he’s always just been more interested in documentaries and reading.

This leads to Jack complain about how nerdy Mac is, then lecturing him on his movie preference or lack thereof. And of course, this inevitably leads to Jack explaining, complaining, and going over the Die Hard movies in astonishing detail.

Mac knows the sun sets around 6pm so after hiking for what feels like forever with their heavy packs they check their maps to try and figure out where they are and how far they should have gotten.

They walk a little farther getting to the top of a ridge, where they see the tree line of the forest, where the trees suddenly end and open into a wide flat field of snow. They’re not sure how big the field is, they can barely see the other end on the horizon. The trees in the distance are tiny and faded in the snow.

They walk around the area just inside the forest looking for a protected spot to set up their tent for the night. They have a few hours before they lose their light, but it might be sooner as the sky filled with clouds and the temperature was slowly getting cooler.

They find a place to set up their tent down the hill a little way, it’s a flat area not too big but clear of large rocks and unmovable brush. Mac checks it over moving stones, the snow, and the grasses around to make it as flat as possible, as Jack pulls out their tent. They roll out their ground tarp first, to protect from water seeping in the bottom. They lay out the tent on top and construct the polls, working together to feed the poles through the loops and get the tent standing. After a few minutes and a lot of swearing their tent is standing and pegged down. They throw the fly overtop and hook it to the pegs to keep them dry and step back to admire their work.

“I wanna see inside!” Jack says excitedly unzipping the fly then the tent and throwing himself inside careful to keep his boots hanging out the door.

“No shoes in the tent!” Mac says grabbing their bags of food from their packs then throwing the backpacks into the tent next to Jack.

“My shoes aren’t in the tent!” Jack argues.

“Yea but you were this close” Mac demonstrates with his fingers how close, and it's very close.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Jack announces getting out of the tent and zipping it back up. “I don’t know what you’re going on about. The floor is still clean.”

“I generally don’t like pine needles sticking in my back and dirt all over my sleeping bag when I sleep.”

“Fair enough, no shoes in the tent.” Jack concedes. “Which I was doing along by the way!”

Mac just shakes his head smiling and grabs the food bags and some rope. “Wanna go find a place for a bear hand then make a fire?”

“Sound like a plan!”

They walk back up the hill and find a branch in a tall tree they can throw the rope. Mac ties the bags of food to the rope and hands the loose end to Jack to throw over the branch. After a few tries he gets it, and they hoist the bag up like the branch is a pulley. Mac ties the loose end off around the trunk of the tree with a bowline knot.

“Now what on earth kind of complicated knot was that?” Jack asks.

Mac looks at Jack to see if he’s serious then back at the knot “It’s a bowline knot, it’s a pretty basic knot.” He says sheepishly.

“Pretty basic? You looped it like a million times!”

“Of all the knots to learn the bowline is probably the most important. And it's only one loop. Well technically three but not really because one is just going around the tree.” Mac justifies.

Jack raises an eyebrow unimpressed.

Mac sighs and undoes the knot on the tree, careful not to drop the food. “Here look,” He demonstrates tying the knot again. “Take this side and twist it up into a loop, then take the other end and go in, up and around this end, and back through the loop. And it should end up looking like a little guy in a life jacket, see?”

“Oh, yea it kinda does?” Jack grins, then furrows his brow. “Wait, do it again, I wanna try.”

Mac undoes the knot and demonstrates again, “The rabbit,” he holds the loose end of the rope, “comes out of his hole,” the loop. “around the tree.” the bit of rope coming out of the loop going around the tree they tied it too, “and goes back into his hole.” Mac finishes 

Jack takes the rope and gives it a try. “The rabbit comes out of his hole, around the tree, and back into his hole.” He tightens it and it falls apart. “What!”

“Try again but flip the loop up away from you.”

Jack tries again and Mac walks him through it. This time the knot holds. “Hell yeah! I did it!” Jack shouts, pumping his fist in the air.

Mac smiles widely and nods trying not to laugh at Jack’s excitement. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that. Didn’t you grow up on a farm? Don’t you use knots?”

“Hey! Don’t laugh at me kid. Not all of us are geniuses who grew up in the forest.” Jack scolds but there’s no real fire in his voice.

Mac just laughs.

They find a spot a little way away from the bear hang with a shallow dip in the ground, the perfect place for their fire, protected from the wind. They clear the snow out and drag over some stones to line it. Then they head off to gather firewood.

Mac starts building the fire like a tipi. It collapses over and over and Jack argues they should just pile the wood around and light it. Jack has been building fires his whole life, on the ranch they had bonfires and a wood burning fireplace, him and his friends made small fires in the rocks by the river and got drunk in high school, and he had to make fires in the army and on a few CIA missions. Jack knows how to make a fire. But he’s exhausted from hiking, he’s hungry, and Mac is being a bit bossy.

“Jack you know that wont work!”

“It might?” At this point Jack is frustrated and has just copped by trying to annoy Mac more.

“No! It won’t.” Mac says standing the sticks up again. “It needs space for oxygen and something that lights a little easier underneath. See if you can find any dry moss grass or old man's beard.”

Jack raises his eyebrow at the last one.

“It’s a lichen that grows on trees,” Mac explains. He looks around to find some, “Here!” he shows Jack the dry pale green lichen hanging off the branches of a dead spruce tree. “It takes years for it to grow inches so this one it pretty old.” The scraggly green beard-looking lichen Mac points to is about as long as his fingers.

“And why do you know all this?”

“Mostly because it’s a great fire starter, but it's also a really cool plant.”

Jack looks amused by Mac's excitement over the plant, “Okay, tell me about it then.”

“Really?”

“Sure, you sound like you’re holding back on info.” Oh what the hell Jack thinks I can sit through a lecture, it's not like I have anything better to do then let the kid get excited about his moss.

Mac blushes for a second, thinking, before launching into more facts about the plant, “Lichen is technically a fungus.”

“Ew!” Jack interrupts, but he’s smiling cheekily.

“It's not contagious.” Mac laughs, “Umm, scientifically it’s called Usnea… Oh! And you can eat it,” He pops a bit in his mouth and chews.

“What? Really?” Jack asks not convinced. “Are you sure it does not look edible.”

“Well, it definitely won't fill you up if that’s all you eat, and if you eat a lot it’ll probably upset your gut but other than that it's fine. It doesn’t taste like much just kinda bitter.”  
Carefully Jack puts a bit in his mouth and chews. He makes a face and spits it out. “Yuck! Dude, it's terrible!”

“It's a much better as a fire starter.” Mac says trying not to laugh as Jack tries to rub the taste off his tongue.

They gather Old man's beard from the trees and add it to their kindling in the fire. Jack tries again with the lighters this time the lichen catches curling up, turning hot orange then falling to dust. The lichen burns long enough to light the small sticks and bark which burn slower than the lichen and they burn long enough to catch the larger sticks. And soon enough they’ve got a fire going. 

“Quick Jack keeps adding to it!” Mac says scrambling to find thicker sticks.

Jack adds on sticks until the fire is large enough it won’t burn out right away.

“I’m gonna run to the tent and grab the hatchet off your bag.”

“Okay.”

Mac runs off through the snow back down to their tent site. He unclips the small axe from the side of Jack’s bag. He runs back to Jack, careful this time of the sharp object in his hands, luckily the blade has a cover so it wouldn’t be that bad if he fell but still. He takes off the over and hacks at a longer thicker log they dragged over earlier. He split it into small enough pieces to fit in their fire pit then piled them up next to Jack.

“Here I’m gonna go gather some larger logs we can chop up. Okay?”

“Yea sure kid.” Jack steps back from the small fire to make sure nothing super flammable is nearby.

He dragged over a thick log too large and wet to burn but a good seat. He finds a study poking stick and adds a bit more to the fire.

When Mac returns breathing hard with a few more branches in his arms Jack says. “Why don’t you chop that up and watch the fire while I go grab our food for tonight?”

“Sure, actually why don’t I go so I can tie the bag back up?”

“I know how to tie knots!” Jack says indignantly.

“Sure, okay fine, I was just thinking since earlier I had to explain a bowline knot, to the guy who literally grew up on a ranch.”

“Hey, watch it mister!” Then Jack grumbles something about Mac being a know-it-all, and finally agrees, “Fine, I’ll watch the fire! You go.” He’s not really mad, staying by the fire is nice. 

Mac swings the hatchet down sticking it in a log then turns and heads back to where they tied up their food. He undoes the knot he tied earlier and slips the rope back around the trunk of the tree, then slowly lets the bag drop. He pulls out a package of freeze dried chile, flat bread, and some dried fruit.

Bozer had stayed up using his food processor to dehydrate fruit for them when Mac told him they were going backpacking. Mac thought Bozer staying up for that was a bit unnecessary, but it was a sweet thing to do. Bozer really was a good friend; he always did things like that for Mac. And Mac always felt guilty, like Bozer was always doing these nice things for him but he never did anything in return. Like he never did anything to deserve them, to deserve Bozer.

He stuffed the rest of the food back into the thick canvas bag, then hoists it back up, and heads over to the tree to tie it off. He stops by their tent to grab the small pot and some cooking utensils from his pack then heads back to wear Jack is tending the fire.

Jack looked up from the fire greeting him.

“Hey” Mac sets down the food on the ground near the fire. “We’ll need to melt some snow for water; I’ll grab some from the clearing then we boil it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Jack stays with the fire again as Mac heads to the clearing at the tree line to find some clean snow. He returns a few minutes later a pot packed full of as much snow as he could pile into it.

He sets the pot onto the fire resting it on two of the sturdier burning logs. The snow quickly begins to melt and quickly shrinks in the pot. Once it boils sufficiently Jack opens the freeze dried chile and empties it into the boiling water and stirs it occasionally then puts on the lid.

“This is pretty fancy huh?”

“Yeah, it was pretty nice of the director to provide our food.”

“This is like instant chili, just add water!”

“It really is.” Mac grins, “I wonder if it tastes different than regular chili.”

“Man, at this point I don’t even care. I would eat anything.”

“Fair point, I’m starving.”

Once the chili cooks and absorbs the water, they eat. Not bothering with dishes because they only had limited space to pack, they eat out of the pot with spoons and pita bread. They finish the whole pot quickly, hungry from their long hike.

“That was the best meal I’ve ever eaten.”

Mac laughs, “Me too.”

They sit around the fire warmed by their meal and chilled by the wind that was picking up. The sun was nearly down now, and the air was getting much colder. The sky started to cloud over, and they were whipping their small fire around. Blowing the smoke into their faces no matter where they moved around it. They snack on the dried fruit and sit in tolerable silence finally with time to think.

They let the fire die down, and when it’s barely giving any heat Mac says, “We should probably head to bed soon.”

He covers the hot embers with stones then packs snow around the stones to keep the heat in. Making sure nothing will catch fire overnight then grabs their pot and utensils and heads to the clearing with Jack to clean them out.

Mac washes the snow around the pot cleaning the residue chili then buries the chili snow to cover the scent a little better.

“Hey dude” Jack lightly smacks Mac’s shoulder. “Look up”

Mac flows Jack's gaze to the sky and then makes an amazed, “wow,” sound.

Jack's face breaks into a smile, “It's beautiful.” He breaths.

The sun had gone a while back and the dark sky was now light by millions of tiny stars shingly brightly between the clouds. The stars were packed tightly together creating a breathtaking view. Mac had never seen so many stars even in rural California the light pollution still affected the sky. There was a hint of green in the darkness, possibly northern lights.

It was the most beautiful sight Jack had ever seen and he was sure it would be a moment he never forgot. He’d seen pretty photos of the night sky packed with stars, but every photo of every star filled sky paled in comparison to the real thing.

Jack’s thoughts wander to his young partner, who was currently spellbound by the night sky. Jack worries the kid isn’t telling him something. I don’t want to keep lecturing him, he thinks but I don’t think he’s getting it yet. How many years have we worked together, and Mac still thinks he’s expendable. What am I doing wrong? Jack is lost in thought watching the stars twinkle above them, he shivers in the cold. He wonders If he messed up worse than he thought yelling at Mac after the mission. The kid seemed more distant and out of it than usual, when he wasn’t focused on wilderness survival. Does he still trust me? Do I trust him? Is he just going to be reckless and get himself killed?

They stood there with their necks craned back, heads tilted up, staring open mouthed at the stars until the cold numbed their fingers and toes. Their breath hangs in the air visible in the cold.

When They finally head back to the tent, they get in completely change their clothes and dress in something warm and dry. Thick socks, gloves and hats and they get in their sleeping bags and bunch up their puffy winter jackets as pillows. They turn their flashlight out and lay in the complete darkness with the sounds of night in the forest rustling around outside the tent. They could hear the wind and picked up and blew louder against the tent

“G’night Mac.”

“Night Jack” 

Even though Jack had been acting nice to him all afternoon all Mac could think about as he fell asleep was how Jack was going to leave him after this mission. This is the end. Their argument. His bad decisions and stubbornness had finally driven Jack away. Even if I do everything right on this mission it's too late. And now Jack is just trying to get through this mission alive so he can get home and leave. At least he’ll be safe from me once he’s gone Mac thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So y’all can look up an old man's beard to see what it looks like if you want, it's pretty common in some forests. It totally is edible, I’ve eaten it before but like Jack said it’s not super tasty, but it does make a good fire starter. And if you’re wondering how to tie a bowline knot after my terrible explanation then I suggest you go to the website animatedknots.com that’s where I usually look when I’m learning a new knot. It’s got explanations and a little animation, it's very helpful. But like Mac said the bowline is a very useful basic knot and so there are tons of websites and videos of people demonstrating it. And of all knots I would say it’s a good one to learn. Personally, I never learned it by the rabbit metaphor I couldn’t remember it, but I feel like that’s something Harry would teach Mac so. Also growing up on a ranch Jack would probably know the bowline knot but we’re going to ignore that and pretend they tie their horses off with something else or he never learned it or he forgot or something. Okay I know it doesn’t make sense if he grew up with horses, it's literally the first knot in the horse and farm section on the knot website but I expected that. It's literally the most useful versatile basic knot. It's probably the first knot in every section of knots by activity, and if it's not first it's still there. 
> 
> Have a nice day/night :))


	3. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything feels out of character but I’m just gonna keep writing pretending these are things they would say or do. It's fine and it probably reads fine. We're just going to pretend I’m not just projecting how I act/feel and what things I say onto the characters. 
> 
> Also, y’all I swear wanted to work on this so bad, but I had exams and I had to prioritize studying so unfortunately chap 3 was 70% done for a while there. But now I’ve got some time off so yay writing!
> 
> There’s more swearing in this chapter IDK if there was any before in the other ones. I wouldn’t say it's too bad but here’s the warning: character/ situation appropriate swearing.

Just Past Sunrise

Friday- Day 2

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere- rural Alaska

Rays of golden sun light up the inside of the tent shining through the blue material, sparkling on the droplets of condensation on the walls; slowly Mac wakes up. He blinks and tries to move his arm up to rub his eyes but finds it trapped by his sleeping bag. He looks around panicked for just a second before he sees Jack next to him and remembers the mission and the backpacking trip. To warm his nose he ducks his face under the edge of his sleeping and then pulls his toque back onto his head finding it came off in the night.

He pokes his head back out of the sleeping bag into the cold air. “Hey Jack.” Mac whispers, nudging Jack in the side with his feet that are still in his sleeping bag. “Jack!” He says a little louder, he can see his breath in the cold.

Jack's eyes snap open, he snaps up to sitting, ready to fight. His sleeping bag, still around his shoulders.

“Woah there.” Mac sits up with him.

Jack looks around gathering his bearings like Mac had, then he sighs and slumps down again.

“I’m going back to sleep.” He grumbles.

“No, Jack” Mac nudges him again. “Get up, we gotta pack up and get going.

“It's too damn cold to get out of this sleeping bag!”

“It's not that cold out.” Mac tries to reason.

“I can see your breath, it's too cold.” Jack says into the jacket he was using as his pillow.

“Fine it's cold,” Mac concedes, “but you don’t get any breakfast if you stay here.”

Jack perks up at the mention of food.

“We have coffee.” Mac bribes.

“Okay time to get up. I need some coffee.” Jack declares sitting up, he groans rubbing his neck, “That’s worse than sleeping on a goddamn slab of concrete.”

“That might be a little bit of an exaggeration.” Mac says not looking up from his bag as he packs his things and rolls his sleeping bag.

They change their dry sleeping clothes for a warm under layer then they put on their clothes from yesterday layering on the pants and sweaters, dry socks and jackets. When they were packing for the trip Mac had kept bothering Jack about packing layers to keep warm. Jack complained that he didn’t have any space for any more layers in his backpack. This was true but for good reason on a trip like this you can’t bring much clothing, you just don’t have space for anything extra. And you have to be wearing most of your clothes most of the time in the cold weather.

They finish packing their extra things away and attach their bedrolls back onto their backpacks.

“Why don’t you finish taking the tent down and I’ll start on breakfast?” Mac suggests.

Jack yawns, nodding in response.

Mac unzips the tent and they put in their boots before stepping out into other fresh snow. The snow had picked up over night and was still coming down this morning. The ground was now evenly covered by a new thick fluffy layer. Judging by the clouds gathering in the sky, the storm Thornton had warned them about, might become a problem soon.

The air was crisp, cold, and refreshing. And it was quickly numbing Macs fingers. He heads off towards their bear hang while slipping on his gloves and hat.

He takes down the bear hand undoing the knots and bringing everything over to their fire pit. He uncovers the pit of the fresh snow and the snow he packed on the night before, a bit of smoke escapes Mac turns his head away blinking away tears and coughing from getting a face full of smoke.

After catching his breath, he carefully removes the warm stones he put over the dying embers to protect the heat last night. And fortunately, it worked, and the embers were still hot underneath. He shales the snow off some kindling they collected before and begins building up the fire again, without needing to use matches to relight it. The kindling catches quickly, and he adds a few larger pieces hoping they aren’t too wet. It’s still cold out, so the snow wasn’t melting yet, and the wet hadn’t really set into anything yet.

He melted some snow and had it boiling by the time Jack joined him. Jack had brought all their stuff from the campsite and packed up their backpacks. He’s split the pieces of the tent between their bags to help even out the weight they each had to carry.

Mac poured some hot water from the pot into their mugs and Jack mixed in instant coffee. It smelled amazing.

“This is disgusting.” Jack remarked after taking a sip.

“It's too hot to taste like anything.” Mac remarked after a sip of his own, then he made a face. “Ow, I burnt my tongue.”

“Me too.” Jack laughs bitterly.

They eat instant oatmeal for breakfast, then before they leave, they dump a ton of snow onto the dying fire and mix it around until they’re sure all the coals are out. They pack the food away into their backpacks and prepare for the next leg of their journey.

Mac pulls out their map and compass. “Okay, so today we have to cross the clearing, head into the forest onto the other side and find the river.” He follows his finger along the river on the map. “And if we’re lucky we make it to the cabin today.”

“And if we’re not lucky?”

“Then we don’t know where the cabin is, or the storm gets too bad that we can’t continue.”

“Okay let’s not do that then.”

“Good plan.”

They hoist their backpacks on, clipping them up around their waists and chest, then walk over to the tree line where they watched the stars the night before. The falling snow makes it now impossible to see the other end and the wind is much stronger outside the protection of the trees.

Jack squints across the field, shielding his eyes from the snow. “You’re telling me we have to cross this?”

Mac fumbles with the compass for a second, holding it flat on the map. “Yep, were gonna have to make sure we stay pointing about 20 degrees North West.”

“Which means?”

Mac shows Jack to compass, “We keep 340 at the top.” He turns the dial on the compass to 340 degrees. “Then we face this way.” Mac turns holding the compass flat Infront of him until the red end of the needle points to magnetic north about 20 degrees North East.

“So, we just go this way?” Jack points ahead of them into the snow.

Mac looks up “I guess so.” He folds up the map and puts it away to protect it and attaches the compass to the front strap of his backpack.

“Hey bud, ya think we should wait out this snowstorm, I can’t see 10 damn feet in front of me?”

“I don’t think we have enough food to wait out the storm since we don’t know how long we could be stuck here. It's better if we find the cabin as soon as possible. If anything, it’ll be better shelter.”

“If there even is a cabin.” Jack says cynically before starting out into the clearing.

Clearly, they misjudged how deep the snow got outside the tree line because after stomping through a couple feet of knee-high snow it gives.

Jack falls getting sucked into the snow.

“FUCK!” He shouts.

Mac tries to grab his arm to catch him, but Jack accidentally smacks him away while flailing. “Aak!” Mac falls back the weight of his backpack tipping him over.

“Holy fuck, shit, god-damnit!” Jack swears hitting the ground in front of him.

They sit for a second taking in the situation. Thankfully, Jack was only stuck up to his waist.

“Sonofa-” he breathes out with relief.  
Mac climbs to his feet and extends him a hand to help Jack out. He drags him out of the sinkhole of snow, and they retreat to the safety of the tree line.

“God… I thought I was gonna die there for a second.”

“I thought you were gonna keep falling.” Mac agrees, breathing hard. “That snow is not stable.” He takes another breath. “We cannot go across that if we're gonna keep falling in.”

“I’ve got to agree with you there, brother.”

They collapse to the ground taking to a moment to collect themselves. Jack brushes most of the snow off his legs.

“Snowshoes!” Mac says suddenly, Jumping to his feet. He sways backwards under the weight of his backpack almost falling back on his ass.

Jack catches him holding him upright then slowly gets to his feet himself. “Snowshoes? Dude you can’t be serious.” Jack follows Mac back into the woods as Mac searches around for something, ignoring Jack's remark.

“Do you know how to make snowshoes?”

“I made some…” Mac says slowly. focused on looking for branches the right size. “When I was a kid, a friend of my grandpa showed me how.” 

“Mac buddy, I know you’re a genius and all, but when you were a kid? Like how long ago was this? Do you remember how to build snowshoes? Because I feel like that’s kind of a complicated thing and I really don’t feel like falling in again.”

“Don’t worry I’m pretty sure I remember how. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think it was over Christmas break and Harry took me to his friends’ cabin back in Minnesota, that’s where my grandpa was from right? And my grandpa’s friends’ family was there and we celebrated Christmas.” He stops talking and looks down awkwardly, “Sorry, I’ll just do it...”

“Nah it's fine dude, go on. It's not like I have anywhere better to be.” Jack encourages. He noticed Mac had been acting kinda weird, closed off like when they first met. Jack worries this is about how he’d got mad at Mac after the last mission, for being too reckless.

Mac smiles a small smile and continues. “I don’t remember it too well, but they taught me a bunch of winter camping things, I do remember they showed me how to make a snowshoe’s frame then tie the knots on the inside. It was kind of like making a dreamcatcher…” He trails off lost in the childhood memory. “I don’t think we have enough paracord for that.” He shoves his collection of branches into Jack’s arms and takes out his swiss army knife, opening the serrated blade. “But-” He says before Jack can interrupt, “I have an idea for what to use instead.”

“Okay, go for its dude.” Jack says slinging off his backpack and sitting down on a fallen log.

Mac measures 8 sturdy sticks, all about the same thickness, about as tall as up to his waist and cuts them with the serrated blades. Then cuts 4 branches about a quarter of that length then 8 more just smaller than the quarters. He lays out the branches on the ground making 4 tall isosceles triangles out of 2 long sticks and a quarter at the bottom. He cuts off a bit of paracord and lashes them together at the joints in the triangles.

“Jack could you gather up a bunch of flexible branches about this size?” Mac indicates showing Jack a branch he found on the ground, it wasn’t nearly as thick or study as the frame.

Jack groans getting to his feet and wandering away, not too far off to collect the flexible small branches.

Mac finishes lashing the frames together; then he adds the sticks, cut shorter than the quarter measurement, across the width of the triangles in the middle. The front stick closer to the base of the triangle is where they would attach the toe of their boots. The back-middle stick is just where the heel rests, and the point of the triangle drags in the snow behind them.

“Here.” Jack dumps a pile of small flexible branches in front of where Mac is tying on the last foot-rest stick.

“Okay perfect,” Mac says, looking around distractedly, the way he does when building his little things like this on missions. “Can you, help me weave the flexible sticks through the frames.” He says slowly, as he shows Jack what he means.

After a couple of minutes, they have 2 pairs of crude A-frame snowshoes.

Mac ties the front of Jack's boot to the front-middle stick, looping the rope around the boot and the stick then around his ankle so it doesn’t slip off his foot. He ties It with a square knot at the front of Jack’s ankle. He repeats this on Jacks’ other foot then ties on his own.

Jack takes a few large clumsy trial steps in the snow and they work! He doesn’t immediately sink into knee deep snow instead he sits almost right on top. “Yahoo!” Jack shouts, punching the air, “Sweet!”

Mac grins widely standing up and testing his own in the powder. They shake the light dusting of snow off their backpacks and head back up to the tree line.

In the time it looks to build the snowshoes the storm outside the protective woods had gotten worse the wind blowing harder the snowing coming down heavier and the visibility out across the clearing was noticeably worse.

“Yikes, we walk into that there’s no telling if we come out.”

“It will be fine, Jack” Mac tries to reassure his partner, and himself, “We have snowshoes, we have a compass. I know about how far we're walking so we should be able to make it.”

“I hope you're right man.”

“It will be better to get to the cabin as soon as we can if we need to wait out this storm.”

Jack nods, noticing the kid does look worried about the storm, smartly he keeps his if the cabin even exists comment to himself.

They begin their trek across the large clearing, right into the storm. Mac checks his compass, and they adjust their course, dragging their makeshift snowshoes through the heavy snow. The snow and clouds are so thick they can’t tell where the sun is, there’s just a grey ambient light reflecting around them.

At least the snowshoes are helping them stay above the snow, even if it’s harder to walk in them.

The farther they walk, the stronger the storm gets, the wind whips around them making Mac stumble. He begins to regret his choice to leave the protection of the forest, but its too late to turn back now.

As they walk hunched forwards eyes down, they watch bits snow swirl across the ground. The wind cuts through the top layer of snow creating changing patterns in the snow around them. Watching the ground shift around them almost makes Mac nauseous.

The wind bites through their jackets freezing their sweat in clothes. They have to stop to pull out extra sweaters and socks. Warm mitts, hats covering their ears, scarfs. Jack’s scarf nearly blows away, skittering across the snow. But he catches it in time and bushes it off the best he can.

As they walk Jack adjusts his hat to cover his pink tipped ears better. Mac notices and pulls up his own scarf back over his nose. He tightens it so it stays in place.

They walk for what feels like hours pushing through the wind and snow. They stop a few times to fix their snowshoes. Jack's feet start to ache from the hiking, and Mac is getting a headache from the howling wind.

The part of their scarfs becomes cold as the water vapor from their breath sticks to the material making it wet. They have to move their scarves so it’s dry again and actually keep their faces warm.

They can’t see their footprints behind them, the snow fills them in too quickly.

“HOW MUCH FARTHER?” Jack asks yelling over the wind.

“WHAT?”

“HOW FAR?” Jack points ahead of them.

Mac looks at the compass like it will tell him something other than which way is north. He looks at Jack with an unsure expression.

“We’re gonna die here.” Jack says to himself, staying positive.

“WHAT?” Mac shouts shielding his face from the snow.

“NOTHING.” Jack shakes his head. They continue towards hopefully some shelter.

Finally, they see the tips of snow-covered trees peeking out of the snow in front of them. Jack shouts excitedly and picks up this pace towards them. Mac joins him relieved to have made it. The forest is much thicker on this side of the clearing which provides excellent cover from the wind but might be difficult to find somewhere to set up their tent.

Mac looks around noticing it's hard to see where the sun is In the sky, everything above them is just sort of grey. He can’t tell what time it is and neither of them brought a watch. He’d been guessing the time based on how high the sun was but now, no such luck this time.

“Jack, I think we're gonna have to stay here tonight.”

Jack stops and turns to see Mac's face. “But what about the storm?” He gestures at the falling snow around them.

“I can’t tell what time it Is, we spent way longer than I thought we would need crossing the clearing and making snowshoes. We don’t want to get caught out here at sundown.”

“So, we set up the tent then Hoss?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’ll be too hard once the suns gone down.”

“Great I’m tired of dragging these heavy things through the snow.” He shakes his snowshoes knocking the snow off revealing his boots.

“Those things are keeping you above the snow so maybe a little gratitude?” Mac replied sarcastically.

“Woah bud!” Jack puts out his hands in surrender. Mac shoots him a glare.

“Thanks.” He mock’s Mac’s sarcasm, with a grin.

Mac huffs and turns back to the path. They head deeper into the forest crushing the snow and brush with their makeshift snowshoes. They find a place to set up their tent, hidden and protected by the trees but open and flat enough it will work.

They set the tent up, working together like the night before, then head off to make a fire and store their food.

It's much harder to find firewood under the fresh snow, thankfully it’s cold enough the snow isn’t melting onto the wood, soaking it. Unfortunately because it’s harder to find wood and it’s cold, Mac and Jack are freezing without a fire for longer, even bundled up in as many layers as they can.

The wind is much quieter here than when they were out crossing the open valley but it's still whipping through the trees, cutting through their coats, chilling them.

Mac shivers scooping snow out of their chosen firepit site. They’ve situated their fire South West of their campsite, downwind. Mac stands to find Jack hauling in a large bundle of firewood he gathered.

“I’ll go hang our food,” Mac points roughly east of them, to the place he was thinking of for their bear hang. He’d seen it on their way into the woods. “Then dinner after this?”

“Yeah sure, and dude, careful you don’t run into any bears.” Jack jokes, finishing clearing the snow from their fireplace.

“Ha-ha Jack, bears are a real concern out here. Just because there are no bears in Texas, doesn’t mean there aren’t bears here. We’re more likely to see a bear on this mission than any other mission we’ve done so far.”

“What about Australia?” Jack raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“No Jack; that was koalas, and you made me agree to never bring that up again! And koalas aren’t even technically bears.”

“Okay, okay fine I believe you on the bears Hoss.” Jack laughs. “And anyways I once saw one, huge bear, run this guy down in Siberia, it was bloody. It was vicious, so believe me I believe you about the danger of bears.”

“Hm, that’s weird bears aren’t usually that aggressive, did they… provoke it?”

“Nah it's cuz it was a War Bear, crazy Russian son of bitch.”

“Jack I don’t think there’s been a bear in any army since the 40s,” Jack raises an eyebrow, Mac continues, “there was one in the Polish army, fought Nazis and everything.”

“This wasn't army, it was some crazy dude, trained his bear to kill. Weirdest thing I ever saw.”

Mac unsure how to respond to that story, he nods slowly then turns away to grab their food. It was in moments like that where Jack tells crazy stories, and they joke around that Mac forgets Jack is leaving after this. The thought sobers him, he knows Jack was right, he is reckless and dangerous, and Jack is a good agent who deserves better than to be stuck in the middle of Alaska with him.

Mac shakes himself of his thoughts by focusing on the task at hand. He sets up the bear hang same as before and ties it off with a sturdy bowline knot.

Grabbing the stuff, they need for dinner he returns to the fireplace, where Jack is once again struggling to light it.

“Need a hand there big guy?”

“I got it.” Jack growls lighting another match.

“It might help if you start by shielding the fire with your body to stop it from going out right away. Then let the wind fuel it with oxygen.”

“I know what I’m doing!” Jack says stubbornly, striking another match only to have it go out in the wind despite his efforts to protect it. “Quit staring kid! Go chop some more wood or somethin’.”

“Sorry.” Mac pushes his toque up out of his eyes, making sure its still covering his ears, then he grabs the hatchet and wanders off to find some more firewood for Jack.

As soon as Mac is gone Jack takes his advice and positions himself back to the wind with the fire pit in front of him. This time his match lights the moss, smoke floats up into his face, he coughs shielding his eyes. 

As he leans to the side the wind picks up behind him and for the second time, It blows his small flame out, “For Christ's sake, Mac.” Jack sighs angrily to himself, since he sent the kid off.

The wind dies down a bit and…

Suddenly the kindling lights up again, an orange flame shooting up so fast Jack nearly burns himself. “Shi-” he swears stumbling back. He rubs his face, making sure his eyebrows didn’t get crisped off.

Once the fire is a safe height Jack starts on the food heating snow for water, Mac returns a few minutes later with a couple of big logs to add to the fire.

“Hey, you got the fire going!”

“Nearly singed off my eyebrows with your little wind trick.”

“Sorry” Mac apologizes sounding guilty, “I thought it would help.”

“It's fine Hoss, it worked out fine.” Jack relaxes. “Anyways soup’s almost done.”

They eat the soup out of their travel mugs sipping it like coffee. Sitting close to the fire the sun is definitely going down now. They still can’t see where the sun is but it’s getting colder and looking west the falling snow and clouds have an orange tinge.

“Can’t believe it's still snowing.” Jack attempts to make conversations with Mac who appears to be in deep thought absently sipping his soup.

“Wha-” Mac looks up, “Yeah, I think it’s picking up again.”

“You think this is the storm Patty was talkin’ about? I mean I can’t believe she sent us out here into a blizzard.”

“She said the mission was time sensitive. I guess that's why we’re ignoring the extreme weather warnings.”

“Time sensitive. I don’t think anyone else is trekking out here in this storm.”

“I hope not, I’m too tired to run from assassins.” He yawns.

Jack yawns too, “I haven’t walked this far since we broke down in the desert and had to walk back into L.A., no this is farther and this time I’m freezing.”

“It's late fall in the Alaskan mountain range, what kind of weather were you expecting?”

“Alright wise guy, lets pack this shit up and hit the hay.” He yawns again, and finishes his cold soup in one last gulp.

Mac also finishes off his soup, and they clean up carefully to pack the firepit with rocks and snow to keep the embers warm overnight. Mac sends Jack to go put the food away and tie the bear hang while he cleans their dishes with snow.

Jack can’t remember exactly what Mac showed him the day before, so his bear hang is a little different. After a couple tries he gives up on trying to tie it off with a bowline knot, and just uses a regular knot around the tree trunk. Good enough.

Once he’s done he grabs Mac from the firepit and they hurry back to the tent, their light is almost all gone and they’re both exhausted from hiking so it feels later than it is.

They shake the snow from their clothes the best they can before the climb in the tent. It'd been snowing on them all day and they had collected quite a bit. Jack clicks on a flashlight to light the tent. They lay out their soaked hats, socks and mitts on their bags to dry them as much as they can before tomorrow. They change into their dry clothes and quickly get in their sleeping bags for warmth.

Mac pulls out his map from the side of his bag and shows Jack where he thinks they are. Right near the edge of the clearing they just crossed. They might have gotten to at least the river today or with better conditions maybe even all the way to the cabin. But they fell short, and set up camp right away at the edge of the clearing, because of the storm.

Speaking of which it rages outside of the tent blowing at the walls wind whistling, rustling the fly. Mac points to the river on the map North of their position. They’re going to have to find it tomorrow then walk along the bank upstream to find the cabin.

“That’s not that bad then. Not too far.” Jack says.

“If the storm gets any worse than today it might be.” Mac says packing up the map. “But hopefully we reach the cabin before the worst of the storm, so we have somewhere to hole up until it blows over.”

“Assuming the cabin is more than an old pile of logs.” Jack says negatively.

Mac hums in agreement and pulls up his sleeping bag to cover his freezing nose. This time it's out like a light, he’s too worn out to lay there and overthink everything between him and Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’ve never been to Denali national park or Alaska for that matter, I’d never even heard of Anchorage, the city, before this so I’m definitely taking some creative liberties on the landscape and weather. I’ve been winter camping multiple times and I’ve done lots of other camping in the Rockies, in Kananaskis and such, so I sort of have some firsthand experience to draw from. I’ve been to NWT so that’s close, Yellowknife at about the same latitude, it was summer though. But that was the first time I saw the northern lights; they weren’t very bright but still very cool.  
> Also, I looked it up and technically bear hangs are illegal in Denali, you're supposed to use bear proof containers but we're just going to ignore that.
> 
> Fun Fact: Last year in early spring I was walking on a frozen lake. Around the edges there was lots of snow and it was mostly stable but there were clear lines where the ice had shifted under the snow and the cracks could be quite deep even by the shallow edge. Anyways some of the cracks weren’t so noticeable under the snow, and I accidently stepped into one and my whole leg slipped in, like snow and ice up to my hip. There was no water; it was just where the ice attached to the shore cracked off the ice in the center when the water level went down. So luckily I didn’t get wet or stuck, but for a second, I swear I thought I was gonna fall In, get stuck in the ice and die. So yea I swore like Jack, probably not even that much, but still.
> 
> Also, guys Mac was completely right about the war bear in the polish army in WWII. It’s a pretty cool story the bear was called Wojtek if you want to look it up. And don’t ask what happened in Australia with the koala bears.
> 
> Also here’s the URL to a video I found that shows you how to build DIY snowshoes like the ones Mac and Jack build.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F880ulVzKFU  
> Idk if it's snowy where you guys are but it's still pretty cool.
> 
> Also sorry for the long notes, apparently, I have stuff to say. Sorry they’re so long though.


End file.
